funnysnow

Claim: Photographs show Swiss landscape and vehicles encrusted with ice from severe cold weather.

Status: True.









Origins: These pictures of cars, boats, trees, and other landscape features encrusted with ice from severe cold weather began circulating on the Internet in late January 2005, accompanied by viewer-added comments such as "Now this is what I'd call really cold...brrrrrrrrr"; "Sure glad that it doesn't get this cold here"; "So, How cold was it?"; and "Next time you're complaining while scraping the ice off your windscreen, think again!"

Various e-mailed versions of these photos claim such diverse geographic origins for them as Massachusetts, Newfoundland, and Switzerland. The latter is correct, as these pictures correspond to other photographs and news accounts of a freezing storm that hit the area of Lake Léman (also known as Lake Geneva), Switzerland, in January 2005. One news account, for example, reported that:

These images also correspond to similar photos on a web site which identifies them as pictures of Lake Léman, taken on 26 January 2005. (Presumably the objects shown have been coated with spray from waves breaking on the lake's shore, which then hardened into a solid coating in the sub-freezing temperatures.) The translated title of this French-language page is "Wind and ice on Geneva," and the text notes that the pictures were taken on the shores of Lake Léman during winds gusting up to 110 km/h.

[If pictures are not working, right click on the green stupid face, properties. Copy the url, and paste it in your address bar. Or, try refresh the page.]

Do up my reputation. =D

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